The secret servant: the life of Sir Stewart Menzies, Churchill's spymaster

Michael Joseph Ltd [Published date: 1988]. Hard cover, 830 pp. [From front jacket flap] Sir Stewart Menzies was the legendary British spymaster of the Second World War, role model for lan Fleming's 'M'. In this definitive biography, written with the help of many of Menzies' friends, associates and family, intelligence expert Anthony Cave Brown reveals startling new light on this enigmatic figure. He reveals a wealth of Information about Britain's wartime activities, as weU as new and startling discoveries aboutKim Phllby, whose defection had devastating consequences for Menzies' reputation. Menzies. an Old Etonian and officer in the Life Guards, was the natural choice for the Establishment's most coveted job - head ofSecret Intelligence Service (SIS). In his powerful study, Anthony Cave Brown charts Menzies, action-packed career, from his miraculous survival in World War I. his exposure of Edward VIII's treason before the start of the Second World War, through the triumphs at Bletchley - SIS cryptology headquarters whose code-breaking operations were responsible for breaking the secret communications of the German High Command. He finally uncovers startling new information which suggests that Menzies knew of Phllby's treason and exploited it for British ends. Anthony Cave Brown resurrects the legend of 'C' to write the first and definitive biography of Britain's greatest spymaster. Brown is the only writer ever to interview extensively the mysterious and reclusive Menzies, and drawing from an exhaustive research effort he has finally captured the epic story of the last great defender of the British Empire -the man whose epitaph the author says should read: "At a desperate time in world history he was the right man in the right place at the right time."